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THE ENDLESS LIFE 



W$t Jlngrofoll iUcture, 1905 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 



BY 



SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1905 



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COPYRIGHT I905 BY SAMUEL MCCHORD CROTHERS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November igoj 



THE INGERSOLL LECTURESHIP 



Extract from the will of Miss Caroline Haskell Ingersoll, 

who died in Keene, County of Cheshire, New 

Hampshire, Jan. 2b, i8gj. 

First. In carrying out the wishes of my late 
beloved father, George Goldthwait Ingersoll, as 
declared by him in his last will and testament, I 
give and bequeath to Harvard University in Cam- 
bridge, Mass., where my late father was graduated, 
and which he always held in love and honor, the 
sum of Five thousand dollars ($5,000) as a fund for 
the establishment of a Lectureship on a plan some- 
what similar to that of the Dudleian lecture, that is 
— one lecture to be delivered each year, on any con- 
venient day between the last day of May and the 
first day of December, on this subject, "the Im- 
mortality of Man," said lecture not to form a part 
of the usual college course, nor to be delivered by 
any Professor or Tutor as part of his usual routine 
of instruction, though any such Professor or Tutor 
may be appointed to such service. The choice of 
said lecturer is not to be limited to any one religious 
denomination, nor to any one profession, but may 
be that of either clergyman or layman, the appoint- 
ment to take place at least six months before the 
delivery of said lecture. The above sum to be 
safely invested and three fourths of the annual in- 
terest thereof to be paid to the lecturer for his 
services and the remaining fourth to be expended 
in the publishment and gratuitous distribution of 
the lecture, a copy of which is always to be fur- 
nished by the lecturer for such purpose. The same 
lecture to be named and known as "the Ingersoll 
lecture on the Immortality of Man." 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 

IN venturing upon the subject of 
immortality, it is necessary to 
rid our minds at once of the 
conceit of present knowledge and of 
the expectation that our thought shall 
be adequate to the reality that beckons 
us. There are moods in which we are 
interested only in what we can clearly 
see and adequately define. With in- 
struments of precision we survey our 
little field, and fix its boundaries. We 
tolerate no vagueness, and that which 
we do not know is that for which we 
do not care. 

Now and then, one finds a mind 
that seems capable of no other mood. 
It is satisfied with things as they are, 



2 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

or, rather, with what it accepts as the 
same, with things as they seem. It is 
disturbed by no sense of incongruity 
between what it has discovered as 
actual, and what it has conceived as 
possible and infinitely to be desired. 
It never flings itself passionately 
against its limitations, seeking to push 
them back, and believing that the 
best is yet to be. The equilibrium 
between its desires and its attainments 
is never greatly disturbed. To such 
a mind only that which can be mea- 
sured is real. 

If we were to accept such a mood 
as final, we might dismiss the subject 
of immortality. It has no standing 
place before such a judgment seat. 
The faith in immortality is not a field 
of experience well surveyed and fixed 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 3 

by metes and bounds. It is rather 
the sense that there is an unexplored 
territory that stretches beyond the 
boundaries that we see. Man is an 
adventurer who cries, — 

I am a part of all that I have met; 
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
Gleams that untravePd world whose margin 

fades 
For ever and for ever when I move. 

The idea of immortality is one of 
the phases of the thought of infini- 
tude. It is the removal of limits 
which at first seemed final. It is the 
assertion that our own lives are infi- 
nitely greater than we had thought; 
that there is something beyond the 
familiar boundaries of Time. 

Now, how do we ever come to a 
sense of the infinite ? It is not by 



4 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

way of abstraction. Having discov- 
ered a finite reality, we do not turn 
away from it, and, in a spirit of will- 
ful contradiction, assert the existence 
of the infinite. No ! We follow a 
finite thing. We seek to grasp it, to 
understand it in all its relations and 
antecedents. We follow it till sud- 
denly we get beyond our depth. To 
come to that experience, we have only 
to follow anything far enough. 

This experience of the unfathom- 
able depths of being may be long de- 
layed. Those who take care to keep 
well within bounds are not likely to 
be disturbed by the sense of the 
boundless. The average man does 
not live habitually in the awed con- 
sciousness that he is in an infinite 
universe. He is dealing, as he thinks, 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 5 

with finite realities. He prides him- 
self on his ability to see all around a 
subject and to exhaust its possibilities. 
He talks glibly of the beginning and 
the end of things. He has the ability 
so to concentrate his mind upon a 
single phase of the actual as to shut 
out all else. His mind is preoccupied 
by a multitude of petty cares. 

And yet, for all that, he does live 
in the presence of infinite reality ; and 
now and then the fogs are brushed 
aside, and he becomes conscious of 
where he is. 

He had used his mind merely as 
an instrument for private gain. He 
had sharpened his wits as he would 
sharpen any other tools. They had 
seemed impenetrable to ideas uncon- 
nected with self-seeking. And yet, 



6 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

forced to meditation, the mind of 
this self-seeker becomes a mirror of 
the universal mysteries, — an imper- 
fect mirror, indeed : the images are 
blurred and vague, but they are vast 
and significant. The things which 
once seemed final are not final ; that 
which he thought he understood is 
past all understanding. His mind is, 
instead of being merely an instrument 
of precision, — 

the unimaginable lodge 
For solitary thinkings, such as dodge 
Conception to the very bourne of heaven, 
Then leave the naked brain. 

This experience comes whenever he 
allows himself leisure to turn from his 
immediate occupation, and look, at the 
horizon. What lies beyond ? Words 
which seemed definitions become mere 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 7 

suggestions when he tries to under- 
stand them. Time, Space, Force, — 
these had seemed measurable, but to 
his awakened thought they open up 
infinite vistas. 

It had seemed a commonplace thing 
to him to live in the present, and he 
had prided himself on holding to "one 
world at a time." But what is it to 
live in Time ? What is this " Now " 
that seems so substantial ? As he 
frames the word, that present has be- 
come past, — that moment has been 
lost in the abyss of time. It is as irre- 
coverable as the moment when Herod 
was king in Judea. 

In attempting to grasp a single mo- 
ment, to hold it till he can discover 
what it is, he finds himself in an un- 
fathomable deep. He is in the midst 



8 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

of an eternal succession, — that which 
was and is and is to be. He tries to 
think what was there before the first 
moment, — and he can only frame the 
thought of the moment before the 
first. What shall be after the last 
moment? — it must be the moment 
after the last. And then the first and 
last become words without meaning, 
and he cries, " End there is none ; lo, 
also there is no beginning." 

He surveys his field and fixes his 
boundaries. He is satisfied with his 
finite possessions, this bit of space en- 
closed against all trespassers. Then 
in the night he looks up, and there is 
no enclosure. Upon his scanty acres 
the patient stars look down, — they are 
the same lights the first tribes of men 
saw when they looked up, half fright- 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 9 

ened, and wondered at the infinitude 
above. The eye sees so far into that 
infinitude of space that the imagina- 
tion cannot follow, — and still the cold 
reason declares that it is not the end. 

The man exerts his strength. He 
walks, runs, lifts, pushes. Each exer- 
tion is a revelation. At last he learns 
to use the forces outside himself. He 
exults over his discoveries, and then 
is overwhelmed, for he has come upon 
an energy which is without bounds. 
It moves from everlasting to everlast- 
ing. He cannot account for it, he can- 
not comprehend it, but it is here. 

All these discoveries of infinitude 
come about very simply and inevit- 
ably. There is an attempt to do a 
definite thing ; it turns out to be im- 
measurably greater than it seemed. 



io THE ENDLESS LIFE 

The Hebrew sage describes the pro- 
cess. cc He maketh the understanding 
to abound like Euphrates, and as Jor- 
dan in the time of harvest; the first 
man knew her not perfectly ; no more 
shall the last find her out. For her 
thoughts are more than the sea, and 
her counsels profounder than the great 
deep." He tells us how he became 
conscious of these profounder depths. 
" I said, I will water my best garden ; 
and will water abundantly my garden 
bed ; and lo, my brook became a river, 
and my river became a sea." 

Now, how does this kind of expe- 
rience affect our thought of the fixed 
boundaries of life ? Awed by the infin- 
itudes of Time and Space and Power, 
the man turns back upon himself. It 
is at first with a sense of his own insig- 



THE ENDLESS LIFE n 

nificance and littleness. What am I ? 
he asks. A finite creature set down 
in the midst of immensity, a creature 
with a definite beginning and end, I 
have a glimpse of an eternity that I do 
not share. My life is only 

A still salt pool, lock' d in with bars of sand 
Left on the shore ; that hears all night 

The plunging seas draw backward from the land 
Their moon-led waters white. 

What am I ? A mark of interroga- 
tion. But there is no answer. He 
contrasts the little world within with 
the great world without. Within he 
finds thought, feeling, hope, love, 
purpose, longing for the perfect. 
Without there is time, space, matter, 
unconscious force. Here is the con- 
trast between the finite and the infi- 
nite, the transient and the permanent. 



12 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

It is the world within, he says, that 
is the finite, the accidental, the transi- 
tory ; the world without is the eternal 
and the infinite. Unconscious force 
is creative ; it has within itself infinite 
potency; it has the promise of perma- 
nency. Conscious force — that force 
which he feels within himself — is but 
a chance product of this eternal energy, 
signifying nothing. For a moment it 
emerges, and then is gone forever. 

Is this the whole story ? The crea- 
ture whose existence is a note of in- 
terrogation must ask questions. And 
he begins with " obstinate questionings 
of sense and outward things." Are 
these outward things the final reali- 
ties, or is there something that tran- 
scends? He awakens in a strange 
land, shut in on every side by alien 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 13 

powers, but he awakens to passionate 
longing for home. He feels that he is 
kin to something greater than himself. 
At last the impulse becomes irresisti- 
ble, and he cries, " I will arise and go 
unto my Father." 

Then begins the ideal life. It is a 
spiritual quest, the spirit of man seek- 
ing that which shall satisfy it. It is 
the struggle for existence lifted to a 
higher level. It is the struggle to find 
that which shall sustain what is most 
distinctly human, — to find food for 
reason, and conscience, and the finer 
affections. It is a struggle against the 
limitations which at first seemed to 
shut out all hope. 

At first the aspiring soul seems like 
" a wild thing taken in a trap, which 
sees the trapper coming through the 



14 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

wood ; " the struggle seems futile, and 
yet it never ceases. Here and there 
it seeks a way of escape. After a while 
we begin to be conscious that the strug- 
gle, which began so blindly, is not un- 
related to the advancing order of the 
universe. The soul's struggle to free 
itself is the condition of efficiency. 
The human strife is not a rebellion 
against eternal law, it is the coopera- 
tion with an eternal power. The soul 
is not entrapped, but harnessed to 
fulfill a mighty task. 

The most significant thing in spirit- 
ual evolution is that we have a creature 
actually existing who has become dis- 
satisfied with his old environment and 
has deliberately projected himself into 
a new environment. His past and his 
present are not enough for him. He 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 15 

consciously lays hold upon the future. 

Browning describes what has taken 

place : — 

In man's self arise 

August anticipations, symbols, types, 

Of a dim splendour ever on before, 

In that eternal circle life pursues. 

For men begin to pass their nature's bound 

And find new hopes and cares, which fast sup- 
plant 

Their proper joys and griefs; and outgrow all 

The narrow creeds of right and wrong, which 
fade 

Before the unmeasured thirst for good; while 
peace 

Rises within them ever more and more. 

Such men are even now upon the earth. 

Here we have our subject in its con- 
crete reality. We do not propose a 
question about a future life unrelated 
to this. We are confronted by a kind 
of life already existing, the life of men 



16 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

who are even now upon the earth. It 
is characteristic of such lives that they 
overflow the narrow bounds of sense. 
They are full of august anticipations, 
they are thrilled by great hopes, they 
are impelled by an unmeasured thirst 
for good. Do not such lives compel 
us to revise ideas derived altogether 
from a study of the world from which 
they have emerged, and over which 
they have triumphed ? 

They have been watering their gar- 
dens of love and hope and courage ; 
may it not be that they have found 
the slender rill becoming a river and 
a sea ? May there not be an infinitude 
of spiritual life matching the infini- 
tude of physical energy ? 

In discussing the question of im- 
mortality, one may attempt to trace 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 17 

its historic origins, in the mind of 
the primitive man. One may, as the 
result of contemporary observation, 
attempt to set forth the attitude of 
the average modern man. In the one 
case we are confused by a jungle 
growth of superstition, in the other 
case we may find ourselves in an arid 
region of indifference. Nor are we 
better off when we consult some man 
of highly specialized intelligence. 

There are men who have studied 
carefully some particular phase of life, 
whose attention has hardly been turned 
to its spiritual possibilities or achieve- 
ments. They are like persons who 
have known some great man when he 
was an unformed boy. They know 
what he came from, and they think 
they know him. But they never treat 



18 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

his later attainments seriously. Those 
who know most about the origins are 
not always fitted to speak most wisely 
about destiny. They are too likely to 
have attention fastened upon some 
arrested development, and to treat it 
as if it were final. 

There are minds with great powers 
of analysis which are devitalized and 
dehumanized. Emerson tells how 
such an intelligence disappoints us : — 

Philosophers are lined with eyes within, 
And, being so, the sage unmakes the man. 
In love, he cannot therefore cease his trade; ' 
Scarce the first blush has overspread his cheek, 
He feels it, introverts his learned eye 
To catch the unconscious heart in the very act. 
His mother died, — the only friend he had, — 
Some tears escaped, but his philosophy 
Couched like a cat sat watching close behind 
And throttled all his passion. 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 19 

What we most desire to know is the 
attitude of those whose human passion 
has been throttled neither by super- 
stition, nor by worldly preoccupation, 
nor by too narrow intellectual inter- 
ests. We desire the witness of the 
broadly, sanely, sensitively human. 
We are asking the world-old ques- 
tion about " the fate of the man-child, 
the meaning of man." And we ask, 
cc What does the man himself, when 
he is at his best, think about it? 
What is the attitude of the man most 
man, with tenderest human needs ? " 

What is the attitude of the ethical 
idealist, that is to say, the man who 
is inspired by the passion for human 
perfection, towards immortality ? 

Let us hasten to say that the first 
effect of sound ethical development is 



20 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

to quiet the impatient questioning, 
and to rebuke many of the insistent 
demands. The question of the dura- 
tion of life is not in the foreground, — 
it waits on the prior question of the 
quality of life. There is a mere greed 
of existence which is pronounced un- 
worthy as if when one had partaken 
of a feast, he refused to give way to 
others, claiming as of right that which 
had been granted him by grace. The 
well-disciplined soul does not claim 
immortality as a reward for services 
done here. Duty is an obligation to 
be fulfilled, it does not involve an 
obligation toward us. Having done 
our part, we may not linger asking 
for further payment. Nor can we 
childishly refuse to recognize the 
sanction of moral law here, or the 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 21 

possibilities of noble living, until we 
are assured of continued existence. 
The ethical idealist takes the nobler 
alternative : — 

Is there no other life, pitch this one high. 

In saying this we proclaim our moral 
independence. Allegiance to ideal 
righteousness is not contingent on 
what may or may not happen to us. 
Its values are intrinsic, — something 
we have already found real and com- 
manding. We live, and we are re- 
solved, come what may, to make our 
lives worthy. We will fill them full 
of thought, of generous purpose, of 
human love, of divine aspiration. 
Though we may be but creatures of a 
day, in that day we will yield our- 
selves to the perfect whole. Life for 
us shall be at its maximum and not 



22 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

at its minimum. How much of good 
may come to us we may not know 
beforehand ; but the good that does 
come to us, that we will hold fast. 
And the good that escapes us, what 
of that ? " The fluent image of the 
unstable best " is ours also. Ours, if 
not to hold, then ours to follow after. 
To be an idealist is to be one who 
takes counsel of his courage rather 
than his fears. He is one who, in 
every enterprise, is 

Still nursing the unconquerable hope, 
Still clutching the inviolable shade. 

For things still unattained he gives 
and hazards all he has. As he will 
not make his reason blind, neither 
will he allow his heart to grow cold 
nor his ideals to be dimmed. 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 23 

All this is dependent on no spec- 
ulation. It is a present experience. 
This is the kind of life which he has 
deliberately chosen, and which seems 
to him good. It is not a life of dull 
acquiescence in established conditions, 
— it is a life of creative activity. He 
is accustomed to project his thought 
into the future and then plunge for- 
ward to regain it. It is now no mere 
thought, but a deed. He has done 
this again and again. Ideals are to 
him no empty dreams ; they are to be 
realized in action. 

His worship of ideal perfection has 
in it exultation, for the beautiful vis- 
ion is to him a prophecy of the day 
of its fulfillment. The beauty now 
seen afar marks the coming of a new 
power. 



24 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

For 't is the eternal law 
That first in beauty should be first in might. 

Love is to him no sad mourner weep- 
ing unavailing tears, — it is a great 
world-power. What he recognizes 
and reveres is love militant and tri- 
umphant : — 

Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
In the wise heart. 

To pitch this life high, does it not 
mean to develop all the nobler powers 
and trust them to the uttermost ? It 
means, — 

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; 
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; 

To defy Power which seems omnipotent; 
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates 
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates. 

Thus the man has lived. At last 
the moment comes when life strikes 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 25 

hard on death. For that moment, 
too, comes the word, " Pitch this one 
high." That means that he is to sum- 
mon his best, that he is to keep on 
as aforetime with his face toward the 
light, — he is to keep on, — hoping, 
loving, daring, aspiring. 

And then comes the sudden silence, 
and to us who watch the brave on- 
going all things seem possible. All 
things seem possible save that there 
should be no path for these patient 
feet. 

The total impression made upon us 
by the noblest human life is not that 
of a completed work. It is not Death 
and the Statue, — Death putting the 
finishing touch to a masterpiece. It 
is Death and the Sculptor. The Sculp- 
tor's eyes are flashing with creative 



26 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

genius, his power is yet unexhausted, 
his willing hand is outstretched. Be- 
tween the workman and his work 
Death intervenes. So far and no 
farther, he says : forever and forever 
the work must remain incomplete. 

A work abruptly broken off. A 
marvelous dawn ending in sudden 
eclipse ; a glorious promise unfulfilled. 
Is this all ? 

Here we have the interest of ideal 
ethics in continued life. We are told 
that disinterested virtue makes a man 
indifferent to his own existence. He 
must be willing to sacrifice himself 
for the good cause. Yes, but what is 
the good cause ? 

The good cause is the creation of a 
spiritual kingdom. It is the glad co- 
operation of great souls. It is furthered 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 27 

not by suicide, but by service. The 
demand is for larger, wiser, more 
patient service. Call it self-sacrifice if 
you will ; that means not self-destruc- 
tion, but the offering of one's self as 
a necessary power to do a work. And 
there must be a self to offer, — and 
the larger and fuller the self the bet- 
ter. This is the word of disinterested 
devotion, " Here am I, send me." 

A hundred times the good man has 
said that. He has gone forth not 
knowing whither he went. It is not 
the weakness of selfishness, it is the 
soldierly spirit, that makes him at the 
utmost verge of the earthly life long 
for new opportunity. He asks for no 
reward for things done, only the wages 
of going on. Still he cries with un- 
abated ardor, " Here am I, send me-" 



28 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

In all this there is not the egotistic 
clinging to a personal possession, there 
is rather the devotion to spiritual reali- 
ties. The primary assertion is that of 
the eternal values, there is a recogni- 
tion of that inner treasure which the 
Hebrew sages called wisdom. " The 
true beginning of her is the desire of 
discipline, and the desire of discipline 
is love of her, and love of her is ob- 
servance of her laws, and to give heed to 
her laws compriseth incorruption, and 
incorruption bringeth near to God. 
In kinship to wisdom is immortality 
and in her friendship is good delight." 

What are the things which most 
bear the impress of the Eternal, — 
which seem most truly to mirror the 
power of God ? Wisdom, love, duty, 
joyous and free service. 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 29 

But what do these words mean ? 
They express personal qualities, they 
are attributes of a living being. They 
are doubtless potentialities of the uni- 
verse, bound up in its necessary causa- 
tion, but to us they have been revealed 
in human consciousness. 

For unnumbered ages atoms have 
been moved about by forces as inde- 
structible as themselves. They have 
floated in mists of fire, they have 
been gathered into molten billows, 
they have been whirled into worlds 
and systems of worlds, they have 
risen in clouds, they have fallen in 
rain, they have risen again in grass- 
blades and flowers and trees. They 
have been organized into creatures 
that breathe and creep and walk and 
fly, and then return again into dust. 



\ 



30 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

All this is wonderful, and yet thus 
far the Universe seems to be all of 
one piece. In all this change of form 
there is no destruction of values, for 
the whole receives the parts back 
again into itself. There is no more 
sense of loss in the dissolution than 
in the evolution*; it is merely change 
of form, the substance remains the 
same. Physical force remains physical 
force, atoms remain atoms through all 
the metamorphosis. There is thus far 
no room for rebellion against the hur- 
rying fate. " Dust to dust," — there is 
no repining against that law, as long 
as the dust is dust, and nothing more. 

But the time comes when there is 
something more. Out of the dust 
there emerges a creature whose exist- 
ence in the material world is nothing 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 31 

short of a miracle. Connect him as 
closely as you may with all that went 
before, and yet the amazing fact re- 
mains that his being carries him into 
another sphere which transcends the 
familiar round of physical causation. 
His language is strange in this world 
of law. Is it only a chance concourse 
of atoms, organized into a brain, as 
yesterday they may have been organ- 
ized into the weeds of the roadside, 
from which comes the confident voice : 
I love, I hope, I worship eternal beauty, 
I offer myself in obedience to a perfect 
law of righteousness, I gladly suffer 
that others may be saved, I resist the 
threatening evil that I see, I choose 
not the easy way, but the difficult way, 
my will shall not yield to circumstance, 
but only to a higher will. 



32 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

Molecules, however organized, do 
not naturally thus utter themselves. 
Chemical reactions are not thus ex- 
pressed. There are no equivalents 
for this new power in the mechanical 
forces. 

Are we not compelled to say, cc We 
are in the presence of a new and higher 
kind of energy. The stupendous fact 
is the existence of a living will. Out 
of a universe of purposeless force there 
comes a purposeful will devoted to 
absolute good." Can that be true ? 
Our instinct for orderly causation does 
not allow the statement to pass un- 
challenged. A universe out of which 
there emerges a living will cannot be 
purposeless. In the light of the living 
will the history of the Past must be 
written, and this newly revealed force 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 33 

throws a penetrating light into the 

future. Here is something that has 

an eternal meaning : — 

O living will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock. 

Here is the first glimpse of infini- 
tude that really satisfies. The infini- 
tudes of Time and Space and Physical 
Force awe us at first, and then tire 
us. It is because they are infinite in 
extent, but not infinite in value. We 
very quickly exhaust their meaning, 
and then there is the sense of mo- 
notonous repetition. It is the sense 
that comes when we stand upon the 
summit of a mountain that looks 
down upon numberless lesser heights. 
At first there is the exhilaration of 
achievement and the widened hori- 
zons. But there is nothing any 



34 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

longer to beckon us ; the rugged 
earth is flattened beneath us into a 
featureless expanse. We tire of look- 
ing down. 

But the glimpse of spiritual infini- 
tude is like the glimpse of mountains 
towering above us, range upon range, 
peak above peak. Looking up we see 
no end, we are inspired by the im- 
mensities. There is in us the unstilled 
desire for that which lies beyond. Did 
ever lover tire of the thought of love 
eternal, the vaster passion gathering 
all unto itself, guarding all and keep- 
ing all? The truth-lover tires of the 
accumulation of unrelated facts, but 
he does not tire of Truth, Truth vi- 
talized and humanized. Divine ideas 
ever find us young and ever keep us 
so. " No man," said Victor Hugo, 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 35 

"can make an end with his con- 
science ; ,: ' and we may add, no man 
with an awakened conscience wishes 
to make an end. " The path of the 
just is as a shining light that shineth 
more and more unto the perfect day." 

One theme there is that is inex- 
haustible : that is the development of 
a soul. Here is a work of creation 
that might go on forever, and forever 
absorb our interest. 

Does it not all come back to this 
one realization pf "the abysmal deeps 
of personality " ? Those to whom per- 
sonality is suggestive of limitation may 
hesitate to speak either of a personal 
God or of the continuance of the per- 
sonal life of man. The conscious per- 
sonality seems to them only a part of 
an unconscious whole. They think 



36 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

of it as an insignificant part. Its sepa- 
rate existence is but temporary, and 
then it is absorbed again into that out 
of which it emerged. 

Some little talk of Me and Thee 

There was, and then no more of Thee and Me. 

What does this talk of Thee and Me 
signify ? Is it only the material Uni- 
verse talking in its sleep ? 

There have always been those to 
whom this is wildly incredible. The 
talk of Thee and Me is not to be 
lightly dismissed. Something out of 
the Universe speaks. At first it is but 
a cry out of the dark, then the speech 
becomes more coherent. The talk of 
Thee and Me becomes the talk of re- 
lations of justice, mercy, and love. It 
reveals a universal order. It reaches 
into prayer and worship. The Ian- 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 37 

guage is still personal : " I in thee, 
thou in me." It reveals an all-com- 
prehensive unity. 

This is that of which — when the 
clouds are off our souls — we dare as- 
sert immortality. The ground of our 
confidence is the discovery we have 
made. 

Know, man hath all that Nature hath but more, 
And in that more lie all his hopes of good. 

It is with the fate of that something 
more that we are concerned. 

Or would it not be truer to say that 
when we once are deeply persuaded 
that there is something more, and that 
that something more is in its nature 
spiritual, we cease to be anxiously 
concerned about its fate. Its essential 
nature is the best argument for its 
perpetuity. There is a serene mood 



38 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

that is not impatient for further proof. 
It accepts 

With faith that comes of self-control, 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved, 

And all we flow from, soul in soul. 

This we may say : that the faith that 
comes of self-control rests not on the 
weakness, but on the strength, of hu- 
man nature. It is the faith not of 
mere visionaries, but of those who 
have learned by doing. It is a faith 

that has 

great allies ; 

Its friends are exultations, agonies, 

And love, and man's unconquerable mind. 

It is the faith of multitudes who, 
coming out of great tribulation, break 
forth at last into victorious song. 

It is a faith that lies deep in the 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 39 

heart of many a man who dares make 
no dogmatic assertion, like those dis- 
ciples of whom it was once written, 
" They yet believed not, for joy, and 
wondered." This wondering joy in 
life inspires a deeper confidence than 
many a labored argument. 

It is a faith that is born anew in 
unselfish friendship. Many a man 
who would not claim immortality for 
himself, yet reverently recognizes in 
another greater than himself " the 
power of an endless life." I have 
seen, he says, a life that is to me a 
revelation. I cannot doubt but that 
all is well with him, — 

That friend of mine who lives in God. 

This above all, — it is a faith which 
we all share when we are brought into 
the presence of a supremely great soul. 



40 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

Then we know that there is an infini- 
tude of love and wisdom that matches 
the infinitudes of space. 

Companioned by the great souls of 
the world, we may share their cour- 
ageous joy in the great adventure : — 

Sail forth — steer for the deep waters only, 
Reckless O soul exploring, I with thee and thou 

with me. 
For we are bound where mariner has not yet 

dared go, 
And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all. 

But granting that this attitude of 
hopeful expectancy has the support of 
all that is best within us, the question 
comes, "Why has not the evidence 
for continued life been made so clear 
and strong that there could be no 
longer any possibility of doubt? If 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 41 

our hope rests ultimately on the eter- 
nal goodness, why has not that eternal 
goodness allayed our anxieties ? Should 
we not expect a revelation so definite 
that in all these generations it should 
have given peace to those c who 
through fear of death were all their 
lifetime subject to bondage ' ? Faith 
in immortality is in its last analysis 
faith in God, 'in knowledge of whom 
standeth our eternal life.' Why is not 
this knowledge clearer?" 

So Browning's " Cleon " meditated. 
To him the lack of a definite revela- 
tion seemed equivalent to the denial 
of the human faith. 

I dare at times imagine to my need 
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus. 
Unlimited in capability 
For joy, as this is in desire for joy, 



42 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us: 
That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait 
On purpose to make sweet the life at large — 
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death, 
We burst there as the worm into the fly, 
Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But, no ! 
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and, alas! 
He must have done so — were it possible ! 

The instinct is a true one which 
insists that immortality belongs to 
the sphere of " revealed religion." 
Following this instinct religious men 
have rested everything not on rea- 
soning but on miracle. Once upon a 
time, they say, God graciously drew 
aside the veil which had hidden the 
future and made known the glorious 
fact of continued existence. Those to 
whom this favor was given had full 
assurance, and we believing in their 
testimony can share their confidence. 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 43 

For those who are able to receive 
such evidence as conclusive, immor- 
tality is accepted with the same kind 
of assurance that belongs to any as- 
certained fact. But there are those to 
whom this frame of mind is an impos- 
sibility. Historic evidence can never 
be to them sufficient. It is a chain of 
testimony that can never be stronger 
than its weakest link. If the evidence 
for immortality rests upon a special 
miracle, that miracle must be per- 
formed in their presence and under 
conditions which allow opportunity 
for most careful investigation. 

And yet it is possible for such per- 
sons to believe in a divine revelation. 
Indeed, some of them believe in no- 
thing else. The old antithesis between 
Natural and Revealed Religion is cast 



44 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

aside. We cannot say, Some things 
necessary to our salvation God gra- 
ciously revealed to us, and other 
things He left us to find out for 
ourselves. We rather say : There is an 
eternal revelation of Truth. It is not 
arbitrary or spasmodic. It is never 
premature. It comes constantly "an- 
swering unto man's endeavor." Its 
organ is personal consciousness. 

A stone lies on the ground. The 
sun shines upon it, the rains falls, the 
eternal sky is above it, but it knows 
nothing and can know nothing of all 
this. Men come and take it out of its 
place, they carve it into forms of 
beauty, they place it in a temple, they 
bow down before it and worship it. 
But all this is unrevealed. 

A child is born. It, too, is sur- 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 45 

rounded by realities which are at first 
veiled from it. It knows neither it- 
self nor the world into which it has 
come. But immediately the process 
of unveiling begins. At first every- 
thing is without form and void, but 
as the days go by, outlines more and 
more definite appear. The nebulous 
splendor of the light is distinguished 
from the darkness, and there is the 
day and the night. A friendly face is 
recognized, and there is the first appre- 
hension of the mystery of love. With 
the swift years the revealing goes on. 
Practical wisdom is revealed through 
labor. The knowledge of natural 
law comes through experiment. The 
moral law is revealed to the grow- 
ing conscience. Sympathy comes with 
the experience of sorrow. Knowledge 



4 6 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

comes only as the mind has been pre- 
pared to receive it. It cannot come 
otherwise. First there is the seeking, 
then by slow degrees the finding, and 
the seeking itself is an essential part 
of the revelation. It is an educative 
process, and not a magical transfor- 
mation scene. Its purpose is not to 
relieve our anxieties but to strengthen 
and purify our natures. 

God may not have revealed eternal 
life through some miracle which makes 
doubt impossible. Neither has He 
so revealed the laws of health, or the 
motions of the planets, or the funda- 
mental principles of art, or the ideals 
of true statesmanship. Yet all these 
things are being revealed through the 
development of humanity. It is a 
marvelous series of discoveries. 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 47 

The hidden things are not those 
which are least important nor those 
which are in their nature most obscure. 
Shelley writes of cc a poet hidden in 
the light of thought." There are 
truths, sublimely simple, hidden in 
the light rather than in the darkness. 
They await the seeing eye and the 
understanding heart. They exist and 
influence us even while we are uncon- 
scious of them. We may have pre- 
monitions of them long before we are 
able to perceive them clearly. 

We might conceive that anything so 
essential as the laws of health should 
have been revealed fully at the begin- 
ning of human history. Nothing is so 
desirable as health of the body t It is 
not an artificial condition, but a life 
according to nature. 



48 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

And yet no knowledge has been 
longer delayed. The simplest truths 
have slowly come into the field of hu- 
man consciousness. Even those who 
have most eagerly sought for health 
have had to learn through their own 
failures. Such universally diffused 
blessings as fresh air and sunshine 
have been overlooked, and help has 
been sought in all sorts of magic. 
The pioneers of medicine have had 
to cut their way through as dense a 
jungle of superstition as that which 
has obstructed the wav of the theolo- 
gians. One experiment after another 
had been tried. The simple and the 
natural methods are the last to be ap- 
preciated, so slow is the revealing of 
truth. 

Back of all the effort that is being 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 49 

made to enlarge the domain of know- 
ledge, there is one vitalizing faith. It 
is the faith that the healthy life is 
possible. The vast domain of the un- 
known is no longer full of spectres 
frightening those who peer into its 
sullen depths. It is rather the goal 
of eager explorers who plunge into it 
with a confidence born of past experi- 
ence. They have no doubt but that 
each new discovery will teach us how 
to live more wholesomely. 

That word cc wholesome ,s is the 
key to it all. Health is wholesome- 
ness, — it is life in its entirety and 
fullness. Danger lurks in that which 
is partial and fragmentary. Timidity 
shuts the door against its best friends. 
It is afraid of the helping powers. It 
breathes the close air, it shuts out the 

c 



50 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

sun, it saves itself from exertion, and 
then wonders why it is ill. It is ill 
because it does not gladly welcome 
the good. It is the universal that is 
the antiseptic. 

This fundamental conception of the 
friendliness of the whole belongs to 
all ideal effort. It is the doctrine of 
" saving health." The three great 
words " health," " wholesomeness,'' 
and " holiness '' are from the same 
root. Their meaning is expressed in 
the great word of morals, cc integrity.'' 
A strong confidence in the integrity 
of the universe and in the integrity of 
the best personality has been the slow 
growth of experience. It is the whole 
man in the presence of the whole of 
his environment, — the physical man 
responding to his physical environ- 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 51 

ment, the spiritual man responding to 
his spiritual environment. 

Jeremy Taylor wrote of cc Holy 
Living and Holy Dying." The two 
cannot be separated. When one 
comes to die the moral habits of a 
lifetime are not changed. There must 
be a firm integrity, a confidence born 
of the health of the spirit. 

Why art thou cast down, O my Soul ? 
And why art thou disquieted within me ? 
Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him 
Who is the health of my countenance and my 
God. 

There is a faith in immortal life 
which has characterized visionaries. 
There is an ecstatic confidence of 
those whose souls have been filled 
with a sudden glory. But more con- 
vincing to most of us is the sober 



52 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

confidence of the simple man who 
stands in his integrity undaunted by 
death. He sees no miraculous visions, 
but he is steadied by his experience, 
and he takes for granted that he is 
going on. Such a wholesome spirit 
appeals alike to the Stoic and to the 
Christian. Perhaps it was never more 
simply expressed than in cc The Pil- 
grim's Progress." 

When they came to the river there 
were those whose experiences were 
characteristic simply of evangelical 
piety. But among them was one, Mr. 
Honest by name, who was simply 
and soundly human. 

cc Then it came to pass a while after, 
that there was a Post in the town that 
inquired for Mr. Honest. So he came 
to the house where he was, and deliv- 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 53 

ered to his hands these lines : c Thou 
art commanded to be ready against this 
day seven-night, to present thyself be- 
fore thy Lord at his Father's house. 
And for a token that my message is 
true, all the daughters of music shall 
be brought low.' Then Mr. Honest 
called for his friends and said unto 
them, c I die but shall make no will. 
As for my honesty, it shall go with 
me ; let him that comes after be told 
of this.' 

"When the day that he was to be 
gone was come, he addressed himself 
to go over the river. Now the river 
at that time overflowed its banks in 
some places ; but Mr. Honest in his 
lifetime had spoken to one Good-Con- 
science to meet him there, the which 
he also did, and lent him his hand and 



54 THE ENDLESS LIFE 

so helped him over. The last words of 
Mr. Honest were c Grace reigns.' So 
he left the world." 

Our doubts and fears vanish when 
we see Mr. Honest standing by the 
river's brink talking with happy ear- 
nestness with his friend Good-Con- 
science. They talk of the good they 
have experienced and of the greater 
good they still are seeking — and one 
is as real to them as the other. 

Those who share that faith recog- 
nize, in all humility, their own lim- 
itations ; but they recognize a power 
that transcends these limitations. It 
has manifested itself in the simplest 
lives. It has given to them a mean- 
ing that is inexhaustible. " Beloved, 
now are we the sons of God, and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall 



THE ENDLESS LIFE 55 

be." Conscious of the divine quality 
of the present life, one can afford to 
wait for the things which do not yet 
appear. 



Electrotyped and printed by H.O. Houghton &* Co. 
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 



NOV 8 1905 



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